


The Gardens at Midnight

by zetsubonna



Category: The Wizard of Oz & Related Fandoms
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Gen, Gender Dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/zetsubonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ANONYMOUS ASKED: <br/>Once you're done with your essay, could you write us an Ozma story dealing with the aforementioned body horror and maybe how Ozma got over it enough to rule?</p>
<p>Zetsubonna's note: The problem, ‘Non, is that I don’t think she did. She’s not Princess Bubblegum dangerous, but some of the things she does make you… wonder, sometimes… Luckily, she’s not alone. There is actually a canonically genderqueer character in the story. Unfortunately, they aren’t human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gardens at Midnight

She tried not to ever be alone, at first. The Emerald City was used to rulers who don’t sleep. The Wizard was the sort to demand random things at two in the morning for his experiments. The Scarecrow didn’t require rest and was easily bored. So Princess Ozma was just the latest in a line of insomniacs, and that was good, that suited.

Then, she started to get  _restless._ She made the mistake of letting Jellia see her trying to go outside in trousers only once. The arresting stare of horrified dismay made her cringe internally. She tried to stare Jellia down, but it just made things worse. There were things a fairy princess  _did not do_ , and apparently crossdressing and climbing trees were among them. Wearing boots and digging in the dirt were two more.

Throwing histrionic fits and saying she was the princess and she would do whatever the- whatever the- whatever  _in the world_  she pleased would have made her feel terribly ashamed of herself. It was easier to lie.

She was always  _hungry._  As cruel as Mombi had been,  _Tip_  had only gone to bed hungry as  _punishment_. Ozma was too shy to tell Jellia that she wasn’t getting enough to eat. She didn’t want to be difficult. She didn’t want to be- less than they wanted her to be.

After dark, sometimes as late as midnight, she squirmed into pants stolen from a clothesline- she’d left bedsheets in their place- that barely fit across her wider hips and gaped over the top of her rounded bottom and pretended they fit, then snuck out into the orchard, using spells if she had to, to make sure she wasn’t seen. She climbed trees, eating peaches, pears, apples, oranges and other sun-warmed fruits, swinging her legs and trying to tune out her own thoughts. 

She hid frogs in her wardrobe and stole food from her own kitchens in the middle of the night. 

 Her pocketknife had been so much a part of her life that no offhand disdain for it from Glinda would dissuade her using it, so she whittled and carved. Sometimes she would take the Sawhorse to Jack’s and sit up with him while he baked her pies and roasted pumpkin seeds, making pumpkin butter and pumpkin seed spread for crusty loaves of bread she could polish off in a sitting.

 Her Magic Picture could show her anything in the Land of Oz, from the smallest bug to the greatest monster, and she took notes and drew sketches.

She washed her face furiously to get the paint off, never mind that it was just a little bit, she couldn’t stand it. She stood in front of the mirror, naked, and tried to see  _herself_  in soft, creamy skin and long, flowing hair, in delicate hands and graceful, floating steps- it felt right and wrong at the same time. There was a quiet, jarring little dissonance between her mind and her body that fascinated and infuriated her all at once.

She squeezed her hands into fists, so tight they shook, and glared at them because they weren’t strong enough to do what she wanted half the time. She had to  _cheat_ , to use  _magic_  and not _muscle._

She sat, naked, on the floor, crossed her legs and leaned her chin on her hand. Even that was different. The way her legs folded into each other was uncomfortable, she felt exposed. The way her head tilted to the side was elegant and not just  _bored_. Her  _eyes_  blinked differently.

She learned to hate mirrors.

She had Jellia braid her hair back from her face. It was too long, too wild. It escaped pins and flowed everywhere and got in her face. She took to  _twisting_  it, to wrapping it around itself, to tying in knots and ribbons and ignoring the tangle of it. It was impossible for her to look less than beautiful anyway, which was occasionally frustrating and made her contrary side want to go roll around in road dirt and mud  _just because_.

Her pretty little feet were surprisingly tough against bark and pebbles. She cut her foot and forced herself to use magic to fix it instead of letting well enough alone so she wouldn’t get caught.

Tip had never wanted this. Never considered it, not for a moment. Tip had been real. Tip had  _felt_  real. Ozma  _felt_  real, but she also felt itchy, unsettled, unnatural, like she was riding behind a set of routines and a series of thoughts that weren’t her own, but she was aware of them and could understand them perfectly. Ozma felt like Ozma was winning, she worried that  _Tip_  was  _dying_ and that no one, not even the Sawhorse or Jack or the Woggle Bug or the Scarecrow would  _miss him_  or even  _care_.

Ozma cared. Ozma cared very much. Tip had been an orphan, unloved and abused, neglected and beaten, but he had been strong, he had been brave, he had been kind, generous, resourceful and clever. He didn’t deserve to be  _erased_. The world had done just fine without Ozma for sixteen years, and maybe they had missed having a ruler who was powerful enough to keep the witches at bay, but other than that, what  _good_  was she? What gave her the right to steal the very  _life_  of a boy who had  _never had anything else_?

She felt like a ghost in her own skin. Ozma was Ozma, Tip was Tip. Ozma was who she was  _supposed_  to be, Tip was who she  _had_  been, and no one thought enough about the  _consequences_  of the magic Mombi had done and Glinda had undone to ask her how she felt about it. No one wanted to think about it. They seemed  _aggressively_  predisposed not to  _care._

***

Dorothy did not know Tip. Ozma was afraid to tell her, but Dorothy didn’t ask. She loved Ozma exactly how she was and never questioned anything she did or any thoughts that came out of her mouth.

It was  _Dorothy_  who suggested bicycles and bloomers,  _Dorothy_  who was always open about needing at least three courses at a meal to fill her stomach and dessert every time she felt like it,  _Dorothy_  who declared they would leave the palace in the chariot behind the Sawhorse and go wherever they felt they wanted to whenever they felt the urge. Ozma would  _announce_  it, but everyone just  _knew_  it was Dorothy, and who would speak against  _Dorothy_? Dorothy, the adventurer, Dorothy, the heroine, Dorothy the  _witch slayer_?

Dorothy was gregarious, opinionated and unmoved by foolishness. Ozma hid behind Dorothy and was eternally grateful for the curtain. Dorothy couldn’t be  _knighted_ , so Ozma made her a princess and allowed her the freedom she couldn’t allow herself.

There was only one tiny hitch of a problem, and Ozma didn’t know how to explain it. The only person she ever met who could  _explain_  it, who could  _quantify_  what she felt wasn’t a person at all, and even  _Dorothy_  didn’t understand how she felt, but Dorothy’s  _chicken_  did. Dorothy had tried to change how her chicken thought about themself. Ozma could hardly imagine how to have a discussion with Dorothy about  _herself_. _  
_

Because Bill was  _Bill_ , no matter what Dorothy said. They would  _answer_  to Billina, when they were called it, but they didn’t think of themself that way. They thought of themself as a  _chicken_ , not a  _hen_  or a  _rooster_ , and even having dozens of children didn’t change that. Bill was so comfortable in their own skin that they could give away their unhatched eggs without a second thought, wore jewelry when they felt like it and got in scraps with other birds when they didn’t, pecking, clawing and scratching until their beak was bloody and their comb was torn, and remain utterly unapologetic.

Ozma cursed herself for being less aggressive about her identity than a  _bird_. But Bill was just a bird. They weren’t a fairy or a princess, they didn’t have duties or obligations or the constant specter of Glinda’s expectations hanging over their head.

She said all of this to Bill, out of the blue and unprovoked, and Bill listened patiently all the while, their head cocked thoughtfully to one side, their feathers fluffed comfortably against the sides of their nest.

"Tell you what," Bill said, when Ozma ran out of breath and steam and faltered. "When it’s just you and me, yer highness?  _I’ll_  call you Tip, if it’s all the same to you. I’m not much of a climber or a night person, but if you come ‘round the henhouse in the dark of night in trousers and looking a mess, I’ll be more than happy to be sociable.”

Ozma made it a point to learn the locations of every rock that covered bugs outside of the entire city. Bill shouldn’t have to eat dead things, not if it didn’t suit them.


End file.
